BofA loan backs new San Felipe housing project

Twenty-eight families at San Felipe Pueblo recently moved into new homes in a project that tapped into bank and government funding.

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) supported the project with a $2.8 million loan, the first of its kind on New Mexico tribal land in more than a decade, that financed construction and infrastructure on the units, San Felipe Pueblo Housing Authority Executive Director Isaac Perez told attendees at the New Mexico Housing Summit this week in Albuquerque. A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the project was held Aug. 17.

Planning for the project started in 2007, Perez told attendees of the meeting, which is sponsored biennially by the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority.

The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2014. Perez told the session that Bank of America’s $2.8 million “Title VI” loan has provided half the project’s total financing of $5.6 million to date. Additional funding has come from the MFA, Enterprise Community Partners, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the federal ARRA stimulus package and others.

HUD Title VI loans (named after the enabling title in the Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act) are 95 percent guaranteed by the federal government.

“Title VI is the easiest money a tribe can get. It’s a shame more tribes don’t take advantage of it,” Valerie Williams, senior vice president of community development at Bank of America, told the session.

Perez said the project also will take advantage of a second HUD loan, the section 184 American Indian mortgage, which has a 100 percent guarantee. The two loan programs are complementary, with Title VI used for big project loans and the HUD 184 typically used to extend a mortgage to an individual.